Locnville: Band of brothers

By admin

14 May 2010

They’ve scrawled their names on chests, backs, tummies and more and on stage they’re bombarded with bras and panties. Shrieking girls shout their names and the title cut of their first album, Sun in My Pocket, is playing everywhere.

It’s the rocker lifestyle and twins Brian and Andrew Chaplin (20) of the sensational new group Locnville can’t get enough of it.

“We didn’t expect this,” Andrew says, flashing the smile that makes fans weak at the knees. “We just wanted to put our music out there and hoped it would get a good reception. The past few months have been quite a trip.”

Their first album went gold in three months and in this short time Locnville became one of only a handful of South African groups to land an international record contract with music giant Sony Music International.

It might seem as if they’ve come from nowhere but they’ve spent 13 years working for the attention they’re getting.

They were six years old when they got a guitar each from their parents and started lessons together in Grade 2.

The twins were born in New York and were 18 months old when the family moved to South Africa. They have famous roots in America - their great-grandfather was world-renowned comic actor Charlie Chaplin. But the Locnville brothers are proudly South African. “SA is our home and we’ve been living in Cape Town full-time since we were 13,” Brian says.

They describe the unique Locnville sound as “a fusion of dance, elektro and hip-hop with organic elements of synthesisers and guitar strings. I wish we could come up with a shorter name for the new genre,” Andrew says with a laugh.

All they’re struggling with now is their celeb status. “We just can’t think of ourselves as celebrities. With that title you disassociate yourself from other people. We’re musicians who love creating music and enjoy it more when other people like it too. I’m the same Brian and he’s the same Andrew,” Brian says.